About Me

As an (award-winning) author of The Popish Midwife, the first stand-alone historical novel of the Seventeenth Century Midwives  I have spent years delving into historical documents, digging deep to research the true stories of these fascinating women. I am currently - slowly - writing a fourth book: The French Midwife, but left it for a while because of it's very emotive topic of abuse and murder.

much as I love researching the lives and actions of midwives from the past, I keep being nudged toward another of my favourite topics: Hastings around me.

I love Hastings. I have loved the seaside town ever since I was a child and we took day trips from the countryside to pick up shells or have chips on the beach.

And since I moved into Hastings with my daughter, I've loved it even more... the events, the people, the music, the views, the history...

All that and more. One of the 'more' elements being trying to find out about my house, once I discovered that the basement was once a stable, and all ten of the houses in our row also once had stables beneath them. That fascinated me. I've never lived in a house over a stable. I wondered whether the house came first, the stable came first or they were built like that together. After a little digging in the National Archives, I found the first reference to the group of houses as 'stables with living rooms over top'.

While I had found the answer to my question, I came across entries for properties in the area and started noting them down too... especially, at that point, of Hughenden Road and Beaconsfield Road.

But I'd got the bug and soon I have to say, I went down with it hard. I found so many interesting local details and kept sharing them with my daughter and other kids. It seemed crazy to me that we could live somewhere and not know a thing about the area and all the life that had gone here before.

The more I found out, the more I was convinced I had to share things that others of the area might also be interested in. I wouldn't mind doing the hard work of researching if I was already doing it for myself, after all. But I wanted to keep it specific... one interesting fact at the time. Otherwise, I knew, it could become overwhelming.

A broadsheet idea was born. In the seventeenth century, broadsheets were commonly written by anyone and either delivered around, or placed in coffee houses or public houses for anyone to read. Some even sold them or gave them away from their homes. Each one was usually focused on a specific newsworthy topic, and often in rhyme with woodcut-print pictures.

Honestly, I don't think anyone would be ready for my rhymes, so I've put that aside for now and am concentrating on the history of the area and the people who made it. If ever I am persuaded, maybe I'll turn my hand to the rhyming form lol. In the meantime, let's see how this goes...

I look forward to hearing from you, so please feel free to leave a comment on what you think of each post, which is the where I'll record the content of the broadsheets.

All the best

Annelisa

Seventeenth Century Midwives

C17th Midwives book set of first three books

Rollicking Rhymes

My son's book

(How he overcame his OCD and made a normal life for himself)